There are four generic McKinsey interview types: first the Business case interview, second Personal Experience Interview, third Expertise Interview and the HR Interview. Goldbrain will talk about the different McKinsey interview types which are not much different than the BCG interview types and the Bain interview types or the different interview types used by other top s consulting firms in the field of strategy consulting firms.
The McKinsey business case interview is at the core of the McKinsey interview process. With the business case interview McKinsey assesses your communication and problem solving skills in a stress situation. Here is the moment to shine. Show your analytical skills, qualitative skills and quantitative skills to the McKinsey interviewer. You should stay calm and maintain good communication during the McKinsey business case interview.
The more experienced you are the more focus will be on the McKinsey the personal experience interview, also called the McKinsey personal experience interview. In this interview type your interview partner tries to find out whether you are a leader and actively drive change. During the McKinsey PEI interview you will get questions on how you communicated in critical business situations and how you made the difference by showing leadership. If you apply for technical or specialist roles, the focus will be much more on personal experience than on case interviews as this is what matters most, so prepare well for the McKinsey Personal Experience Interview.
The McKinsey expertise interview applies to technical and specialist roles mostly as well as to senior hires. Here the company wants to assess your technical skills and which tools you master. The McKinsey expertise interview is a separate interview for most technical and specialist roles.
The McKinsey HR interview is no real interview. Typically this happens when HR reaches out to you to clarify some things in your CV. E.g. if they need translations for a document or need additional information to your documents or your CV. They want to ensure to understand your CV and don't miss an excellent candidate. But they may also simply explain the process and the next steps or talk to you about scheduling interviews. So don't worry too much about a McKinsey HR interview.
The McKinsey personal fit interview is typically not separated from other interviews, but part of a typical interview day. Usually interviewees don’t fail because of the personal fit interview given they mastered the CV questions and business case interview well. So don't be afraid ot the personal fit interview part.
All of the foresaid interview tips will also apply to all the different BCG interview types and Bain interview types as there is no difference to the McKinsey Interview types. Only nuances. Don't miss this overview on common McKinsey interview types.
Video transcript:
You may have heard about "McKinsey", which is considered one of the most renowned management consulting firms in the world. And you may have heard about their application process. That 99% of their candidates every year fail. Today we're going to look into the matter. Why are people failing? What is the most difficult interview part that people stumble across?
I'm Gabriel Goldbrain! And if you have the ambition to earn 1 million or more of annual gross salary in 8 to 10 years time, apply for My SUCCESS training. I will do my best to support you in landing an attractive job with one of the leading management consulting firms! I will guide you through the process! I will support you with training so that you can make your career in one of those firms! And even if you should one day change your mind I mean $100,000 or $200,000 salary is not bad either. Is it?
Let's get started with an overview of the four main types of interviews you will encounter during your application process with McKinsey. A general misconception is that you think you will get them in a pure form. It's usually the case that all these forms of interview that they're kind of mixed in one interview, held by an interviewer. It's just that the weight that varies by interviewer and it varies by process stage. So if you're in second round interviews there will be more weight to some components. Whereas in the first round others will be more important. So what are the four types of interviews you will find in McKinsey. The first type is the business case interview. Second type you will find is the personal experience interview. The third type you will find is the expertise interview. And the fourth type that that is the HR interview.
Let's talk about the HR interview first. The HR interview actually is no real interview. It's... it happens when you send your application and the HR department thinks that your profile is interesting or may be interesting. So they will call you up. And in some cases if there is nothing to worry about, if everything is clear, if they have all documents, they will just explain the further application process to you. Maybe clarify a little bit here and there. Maybe you did not specify an entry date, so they will ask you for that and get that straight. And then it's mostly done. In other cases it may happen that they think you would be a better fit for some of their special practices. So maybe you applied as a generalist and they will ask you if you would like maybe a special industry practice. So that could be one part which is important because, yeah, you may consider going that route because they have less candidates for these roles and it could be an interesting option for you. It could also be that they say:" Okay maybe you don't have what it takes to become a Generalist Management Consultant". Maybe they want you in a more supportive role. Maybe they want you in the research department. And that's why they call you. So all of this can be reasons for this kind of HR interview. It can also be that some documents are missing. They request that and they just want to get it straight before you continue with the Imbellus test and then with the first and second round interviews. I mean the Imbellus test is like an online assessment. Maybe they explain some few words on that: "Where you want to take it?", "If you want, if you can take a flight?". Basically everything which is around organizational matters, around interviewing that usually has been taken care of in the HR interview. But don't consider it as a very hard screening interview. So it's more of an organizational interview to set the stage for what's coming.
Then let's talk about the expertise interview. This is a kind of interview which will be wrapped in a recruiting day only if you apply for very specialist roles. Which means if you apply for maybe Quantum Black which is McKinsey's AI statistical methods division. Then you will be for sure asked for your experience in that domain. What kind of models did you work with? What tools do you know? What tools do you prefer over the others? What are the advantages of one set of tools over the other other set of tools? They want to see that you master your domain. That you get the big picture. And that you can distinguish when which framework or which technology will best match. But this is not so much important if you talk about generalist consultant roles. There basically only two interview types are decisive which are the next which we will discuss.
Let's talk now about the personal experience interview. If you apply for analyst roles, maybe also associate roles. These are usually of very subordinated importance. For sure they will ask you questions about entrepreneurial things that you did. Did you found maybe a business during your studies? Did you work in a startup? Did you create maybe a club? Or did you lead somewhere? What problems did you encounter? Where did you show leadership skills? And so on... But I mean what can you expect from an undergraduate person? What can you expect like from someone who has 2 years of working experience? For sure you can expect more than from an analyst. But their experiences are usually rather limited. So the focus of these interviews for more Junior roles, it's, it's rather a short part. Maybe you cover 10 minutes-15 minutes in an interview in the first round but it's not that you would dedicate a whole interview to that. The personal experience interview becomes more important with senior roles. So if you're for instance, let's say if you're a partner from another consulting firm, they want to know which account you served? They want to know which Revenue may take over? They want to know how you dealt with difficult situations? They want to know why you apply? What is the motivation behind your change to the new firm? And also another kind of people is people from the industry. They also want to know are you a leader? Where did you make a difference? What important projects did you lead? Do you match McKinsey? And there it can well be that you do not only have one personal experience interview but that you may have two personal experience interviews and that the whole process is pretty much centered about your personal experience, your network, what you can do with the network? What you expect to bring to the firm or to a comp to a consulting company like McKinsey? And then you may find roles like a senior associate engagement manager role where you have like half and a half. So you would say that he still needs some analytical skills but they also need project management skills. And then they will ask you about critical situations which you had in similar roles so that you're qualified for the the role you're applying to. They just want to make sure that you have what it takes. And that you don't just talk. That you present it.
Let's talk about the case interviews. These are the integral part of every first and second round interview Junior applicants will face. So what are these interviews about? With case interviews consulting firms like McKinsey want to assess your analytical skills, your qualitative skills, your quantitative skills. They want to see how you think? How you reason? How you solve problems? How you approach problems? How you present solutions to problems? How you structure problems? How you work? And based on that they typically decide how well you performed against your peers and if they give you an offer. So this is also the part which most people think is the most difficult one. And it's true because most people fail because of the case interviews. Not only for sure more in the junior roles, in the senior roles. It's more the personal fit and it's more the personal experience that people see okay "This person applying here. He's not a leader. He's not going to make a difference". That's more important in these roles. But in the junior roles people typically fail because they mess up case interviews. Because they did not prepare well enough.
So if you want to prepare professionally visit www.gabrielgoldbrain.com and apply for My Success training. Before I will give you today's video recommendations, I'll show you the summary slide of the four different interview types. You can download it from my website. To improve your skills for the personal experience interview, watch my video on the SCR framework. if you want to train market-based cases, I have put together 10 types of Market cases you may face during your first round and second round interviews. If you like what you saw like my video and share it with your friends.
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